I enjoyed sharing about my childhood dogs (Ranger, Champ, and Spike) and my adulthood dogs (Champ II, Moses, Maggie, and Gracie) in my book All God’s Creatures. I didn’t say much about some of them—Maggie and Gracie stole the show—but I loved them all, and Nanci loved the four we had together. (She always regretted not having a dog as a child.) Each dog was a gift from God, and the memories are precious. Here’s more about them:
Champ I
My memories of many nights as a boy sleeping out under the stars are inseparable from Champ, the golden retriever who shared them with me, inside and outside my sleeping bag, peering at me lovingly through eyes of wonder and delight. Looking back, I sense that, in his own intuitive way, Champ knew his Creator long before I did.
One thing Champ loved to do was crawl up on the roof of our house, which was flat on one side. My dad made a little ramp where he could come up from the backyard, and have a wonderful view of the neighborhood. So when people came by our house, they saw a dog up on the roof, but couldn’t see how he got there. We got a lot of comments about that!
Spike
My mother would pick up her little dog Spike, who when he got older than he was in this photo, developed a face so pathetic it could make you either cry or laugh. She would wrap a washcloth around his head so that his bulbous eyes were peering out. She would then tell a story in his voice, beginning with “I was a Russian refugee” and telling tales of his travels far and wide across the world until he was finally welcomed into our family in Oregon. Looking at that dog’s face, you could swear that he was acting out his part. If we’d set a bucket in front of him, people would have put money in it!
Ranger
My family also had a black lab named Ranger, who had a sad story. He got involved with the wrong kind of dogs (notice I am blaming those other dogs, not Ranger?). They went out as a pack and started killing sheep. I remember my mom telling me that dad had found a new home for Ranger, way out in the country. It was only years later that it first dawned on me that my parents were trying to protect me from the probable truth—that Ranger had paid the ultimate price for getting in with the wrong crowd and killing sheep, and surely had not been rewarded with a peaceful life in the country! (Who would adopt a sheep-killing dog?)
Champ II
One of my great delights later in life was introducing my wife Nanci to dogs for the first time. When our girls were small, I told Nanci I wanted to get a dog. Our friend Mindy offered us an English Springer Spaniel. We had the pick of the litter, so I went over and chose a puppy and brought him home to give to our children. Nanci, who had never had a dog, immediately fell in love with him. We named him Champ in honor of the Golden Retriever I had grown up with. (Champ II was a master escape artist, who repeatedly dug under our fence.)
Champ was the beginning of Nanci’s lifelong love of dogs, which I’m confident will still prevail on the New Earth. In fact, she asked me when she had cancer, “Do you think it would be OK if I asked God for me not to rule a city on the New Earth, but instead take care of a hundred dogs?” Given that governing animals was God’s very first command to Adam (Genesis 1:28), I told her I thought God would be fine with that prayer request!
Moses
For a while, we had both Champ and our Dalmatian Moses. When Champ died, Moses grieved his loss. His friend was gone, and he clearly missed him, just like we did. And in grieving his friend, he helped us grieve too.
Moses walked with us through our daughters moving out of the home and starting their own families, and he played with our grandsons. He would let those boys wrestle with and bump him around, and he never retaliated.
Moses was a precious and inseparable friend and walking companion to Nanci. He could also steal food and exit the room in the blink of an eye. He once stole a steak right off the grill when our son-in-law Dan Stump was fixing dinner at our house! (Read what I wrote about saying goodbye to Moses here.)
Maggie
Like every dog and cat I’ve ever had, our Golden Retriever Maggie brimmed with personality. And, no, personality is not the wrong word, even though animals are not persons. If I answered the door or left the room—even briefly—Maggie would always take over my chair (which we both knew was really her chair), pretending she’d been there all along.
Her love overflowed as she would press her body against our side yard cyclone fence, inviting strangers on our road to come scratch her—and many did, every day. Mags would also go out of her way to be stubborn, loving a good battle of the wills, bringing us endless laughter. Nanci would look at her and tell her, affectionately, “Maggie, your mind has a mind of its own.”
When Nanci was in the third year of her cancer, we got the news that Maggie also had cancer. We were devastated, but by God’s grace we affirmed our trust in His love and sovereignty, for permitting both Nanci’s and Maggie’s cancer. (I wrote a blog about saying goodbye to Maggie, and many readers have shared how it’s helped them in their own grief over pets.)
Gracie
Nanci and I were both terribly sad when each of our dogs died. And each of the four times Nanci and I got a new dog, she was effusively happy. Less than a year before she left this world for a better one, Nanci was lying on our lawn to get her face close to our newly acquired eight-week-old double doodle puppy Gracie. She had not been able to sit on a lawn for two years, much less stretch out. Her delight was palpable.
Only twice could we together take Gracie for walks, both with Nanci pushing her walker, once hooked to her portable oxygen tank. It broke my heart that she wasn’t strong enough to walk on her own and even hold the leash of our 12-pound puppy. And yet those walks were celebratory, not morose, because it was the most Nanci had been able to do for months. She smiled and laughed and couldn’t take her eyes off Gracie except to look at me and smile, with no need to speak, because my delight was one with hers. On her final walk with a beloved dog in this dying world, she was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). And it was a joy that came into Nanci from Gracie, in a way that could only come through a spirit, a living being with the God-given breath of life.
After Nanci died, sometimes it was hard to be around people. Not once was it hard to be around my dog. I don’t just credit Gracie for that. I credit the God who made her one of a kind and entrusted her to my care. Gracie is no substitute for Nanci, but her companionship has meant a great deal to me.
And yes, Gracie is full of her own unique personality. She plays games with me all the time. When I give her a treat, she runs for her life downstairs lest I or some lurking thief snatch it from her. She pretends she isn’t hungry for hours, sometimes for a whole day, but when I leave the room for five minutes and return, her food is gone even though she is lying on the couch exactly where she was when I left, just like Maggie, pretending nothing happened when I was gone!
The Gift of Dogs
My life without animals simply would not have been my life, and I know many other people who feel the same way. God has used dogs to make me laugh, bring me delight, and show me unconditional love. There have been times when I’ve really been struggling, but then I put my arms around my dog, and God comforts me. Even when you’ve blown it and made a fool of yourself, your dog thinks you’re a hero. Even when you don’t sense much love from people, your dog will follow you to the ends of the earth and die for you in a heartbeat. (Check out this article about a new study showing that dogs’ brains light up when they see happy human faces.)
God can use the secondary delights of His creation to draw us toward Himself as the primary delight. Romans 1 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” God’s qualities and attributes are made visible in His creation, and the higher the creation, the more manifest they are. Animals are His second highest creation. To observe them is to observe their Maker. As I look into Gracie’s eyes, and as she gives and receives love and devotion, I feel drawn to the God who made her.
I hope you enjoy reading All God’s Creatures as much as I enjoyed writing it. My friend Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, kindly offered this endorsement:
Most of us have had a favorite pet in life. They were often there for us when people weren't. No judgment. No bad days. Just pure, unconditional love right there on the couch next to you.
My friend Randy Alcorn is a bona fide expert on the afterlife. He has researched and written more about the topic of Heaven than almost anyone alive. Now, in All God’s Creatures, he takes the questions people whisper in the hallway after church and answers them out loud with the full weight of Scripture. Whether you’ve lost a beloved pet, are wrestling with why God allows animals to suffer, or just want a clearer vision of what eternity will actually look like, this book will point you to the Bible, and to the God who made and cares for every creature.
(Read all the endorsements here.)
